Believe in the Magic of Christmas by Astrid

Hello all and welcome to the Calico blog! It's a busy time of year, so your visit is really appreciated!

As it's my last post  on the blog here, before the big day I created this little canvas to wish you all the most wonderful and magical Christmas.

I used the following Craft parts:

Reindeer and sleigh woodshape

Christmas Nativity Scene style 1

Holly Leaf Sprig style 2

Believe in the Magic of Christmas wood font

Snowflake minis style 3

As you can see I used the reverse side of the canvas to create my little scene and I started by covering up the sides with some scrap paper to hide the staples and such.

Mitering the corners helps to make it a bit neater.

Next I added a thin layer of gesso over the edges and then I added Decoart Snow Tex to the bottom half and painted the top in Decoart Media Fluid Acrylics Paynes Grey.

Later I added some crackle antiquing cream and some more Snow Tex to the top half also and then covered the whole frame with matt medium and some bits of glitter. (Most of this got lost in the photos, sorry).

Now for the inside panel: I cut some smooth card to the right size to fit inside the frame and then created a kind of moon light landscape with the help of inks and stamps. 

Both the sledge and the tree scene were covered in Gesso, then painted in Paynes Grey and finally lightened to give the illusion of moon light hitting the edges.

The sledge is held in place with the help of a bit of strong card, glued to the back with a hot glue gun. It sits about half way towards the inside of the frame.

The tree sits right against the inside panel, I added some more Snow Tex around it to give the illusion of drifting snow.

Below some close ups still of the craft parts I used to embellish my piece. They were painted in glittery paints with loads of glitter added too, but like usual all of that got lost in the attempt to photograph them.

I love this particular font it's called Coventry Garden, but of course there are many different fonts available.

The holly sprigs and snowflakes on either side of the frame.

Well, all that's left to say is have the most wonderful Festive Season and stay creative!!!